Snapdragon 5G phones to arrive in Q2 2019

Cristiano Amon took the stage at the company’s third technology summit - the second in Maui Hawaii, and showed a 5G prototype phone form-factor device on a live AT&T/Verizon network.

The company will launch its Snapdragon 855 this week and the Snapdragon X50 5G NR has been around for a few months. Cristiano points that this is an mmWave enabled device and it works on a live network. This is the first live reference design ever displayed.

The actual phones can be expected in Q2 2019 which corresponds with what our industry friends told us about the timeframe of Samsung S10 devices. Of course, this is up to Samsung to announce, at some point next year, but there will be more companies launching Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 based 5G NR phones - Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo are the top runners-up from our perspective.

The first phones will focus on a non-mmWave solution while mmWave-enabled phones are expected in the second half of 2019. This is the clearest timeline that we've had so far.

The 5G is not a PowerPoint presentation, it is around us in the hotel in Maui, where even the governor of the state, David Ige, an ex-telecommunication engineer highlighted the importance of 5G for Hawaii, telehealth, faster communication to rural areas as well as self-driving.